Why do you disempower yourself by looking to others to find solutions for your problems?
Forget about “Teal-elians”. If your community is fucked in your opinion, it’s up to YOU to fix it.
God sure as heck isn’t going to do the work for you.
I have yet to see any idea from you that actually presents any kind of solution.
You understand that criticism and constant bellyaching and whinging isn’t a workable plan, right?
With the iterative retrenchment back into Orange/Green nationalism from the Progressive federalization and globalization agenda, I assert that this is a necessary “cleaning up” dynamic in order to facility healthy development along the Integral conveyor belt. While perhaps not articulated concisely in the vernacular of Integral Progressivism, this was the topic of discussion originally intended for this thread.
So where are we right now, today?
It’s quite easy to build a case that the avant gard Progressives have driven themselves into a Mass Psychoses or Cultural Madness in order to justify force feeding their agenda across the entirety of the population and coincidentally taking unassailable power. In Integral terms this appears to be an Already Transcended followed with Forced Inclusion implementation, much as the religions used “conversion by sword” to fulfill a predestined “transformation”.
Does Integral Theory take an assess and critique viewpoint on this cleaning up of Progressive Collective Exterior LR quadrant, and/or are their specific things that we should be doing to affect this cleaning up in the Collective Exterior?
Here’s the thing about cleaning up - you have to clean up your own house. If your own house is a mess and you go into the neighbor’s yard and start digging up their lawn, that just isn’t going to work.
So again:
Of course @raybennett
Sorry if I wasn’t clear but my intent was that we look at Collective Exterior with this post.
Edit - or are you referring to the incoming majority, Conservatives, needing to clean up first?
If so, I’d say it’s much easier to start with what we each control then expand out from there.
Regarding our inner quadrant clean ups, I would say everyone here is likely further along than Joe Six Pack.
I don’t think it’s possible to clean up the Collective Exterior if those attempting to drive the clean up have Interiors that are of questionable cleanliness.
It’s a very common insanity that grips Liberals and Conservatives alike. Christians and Atheists. Men and women. Pick any divergent group, those most eager to change the other group are most blind to their own messes.
It’s almost as if there is a direct correlation between zealous attempts to clean up the External Collective that are directly proportional to a great mess inside the Individual interior. Or more precisely in your case - your desire to clean up another group’s external collective is directly proportional to your unwillingness to clean up your own group’s interior and exterior collective.
Tip of the Spear and oh so provocative. In a classical sense, the current Leftists are far from Liberals.
None the less, is there a process within Integral Theory that incorporates a review, assessment, recalibration reprediction process. Most theories do evolve and are fine tuned as new information comes in. Real world testing of the theory if you will. Unless no contradictory information is seen.
Most schema designed to concentrate decision making within an elite, regardless of how enlightened, have seemingly suffered from corruption, abuse, tyranny and even genocide.
As we are seeing unfold with the Biden Family, Democratic party, and mainstream media we could very well be seeing the worst corruption and intentional Mass Disinformation campaign in the history of humanity. Perhaps we can view this as Gangrene or Gang-Green instead of Mean Green or MGM.
From a transcendent viewpoint this might be an excellent opportunity to tweak the theories or at least tweak the recommendations to implement the theories.
Given that Orange-Green is resurgent, what can we do to pull upward, pull forward?
Thoughts on this topic?
This made me chuckle a little bit 
A bit hyperbolic, perhaps? Though I understand the need for the GOP to maintain such a hyperbolic narrative like this, chock full of superlatives, what with all the corruption and disinformation that has been coming out of that camp in recent years.
Hunter Biden concern trolling falls flat when the same folks making the accusations don’t want to hold Ginni Thomas to the same standards. The wife of a Supreme Court justice got caught up in Qanon delusions and encouraged the Trump administration to have a little coup and overthrow the election. Oh, and Thomas was the only justice who decided the Trump admin should not be compelled to turn over evidence that would implicate his wife. Very clear conflict of interest.
Just came out today that there’s a 7-hour gap in the Jan 6 White House records turned over to the investigation. Smells like coverup.
And then we had the GOP’s truly embarrassing treatment of Jackson last week. Disgraceful.
Rick Scott insisting that his tax plan doesn’t say what it very clearly says. Cowardly.
Personally, I think “Trump won the 2020 election” wins the prize for “the worst corruption and mass disinformation campaign in [recent American] history”, with the most damaging consequences for our entire society.
@corey-devos What if it’s a sincere question and not as political as you seem to enjoy so much?
Setting aside the political discussion, does the Integral elite - I guess this would be Ken, Corey, Robb, Jeff Salzman, Witt, et al - ever recommend consciously regressing in order to clean up embedded psychoses from both previous and current altitudes? Integral theory clearly calls out that every altitude has psychoses that negatively impact humanity and humanities development.
In this example it might be considered as “regression” back to Orange/Green in order to clean things up. I can see where having created awareness of Teal (waking up?), cycling back would
Would this possibly create the best foundation for Transcendence from Amber to Orange to Green to Teal along the spectrum of humanity?
Is there an Integral version of “College of Cardinals” or “Elders” that get together and hash out direction of Integral Theory, and new additions to the theory? I’m assuming Ken to have a highly elevated role similar to say the Pope or Jesus.
How do additions, changes, re-interpretations, deletions happen with Integral Theory?
Just pointing out the framing you used to ask the question, which was couched in pretty strong political language
As for your question, I guess I wouldn’t myself frame it as a “regression” or orange/green, since my perception is that only a very small plurality of people have developed beyond that. I think we have a lot of green ideas circulating in the LL, but not a whole lot of it has been operationalized in the LR. So for the majority of people in this society, orange/green is still “above their heads”.
Also, yes, there is a concept of “regression in service of the ego” where we can temporarily (only temporarily) dip back into earlier structures in order to heal any shadows or traumas that may be dwelling there, so as to free up more resources at the higher stages where we spend most of our time.
However, as I understand it, this is not a dynamic that works with social holons. When a society regresses, it tends not to be “in service” to a higher developmental wholeness, but rather because of “lower” stage ideologies trying to exert control.
That said, I think it’s important for integral solutions to continue working with the full stack of values and views within ourselves and within our society, and to find stage-appropriate solutions to increase the healthy expressions of all these prior stages. This doesn’t require a “regression” within the social holon (which would require all individual members of the social holon to regress in their own development) but rather to strengthen and secure the foundations that are already in place. Sometimes I do suggest stronger interventions — national National Guard-like mandatory service, for example, in order to re-adhere our amber sense of national identity and “being in this together”. But this wouldn’t be a “regression”, as we aren’t eradicating the products from higher stages, but rather strengthening some of the lower rungs in the ladder.
Does that make sense?
Because the way you are framing it as a hypothetical question suggests you are NOT sincere.
I’ll tell you something you may not know - some people are trained to hear these tell-tales of deception. Some hear them naturally.
I’m not saying you are lying, but when you ask a hypothetical truth as a question, that already checks two boxes in the “possible bs” category.
So I’ll flat out say I highly doubt you are asking sincere questions.
The third “check” is that you never seem to hear the answers to your “sincere questions”, so that’s three check boxes in my “Is this a bs question” detector.
Another thought that occurred to me — one of the primary developmental challenges for green, as I see it, is that in order to shift into teal, they first need to “turn around” and embrace all the previous stages that brought them to their present station. Not embrace the views that come from those stages, those are the surface features and should be discarded as we move up the ladder, but rather the deep structures and wisdoms from each of the previous stages. This is quite unlike all other preceding vertical transformations, which only requires a reaching “up” to the next stage. But at the green/teal transition, we kind of need to reach up and down simultaneously, in order to both transcend and include.
The problem, of course, is that green tends to be somewhat allergic to these earlier stages, just as much as these earlier stages are allergic to green, which creates a sort of developmental contradiction. It’s hard to embrace your allergies, and until a trickle of teal insight begins to come online, it can be exceedingly difficult for people to bridge that momentous leap into second tier.
oh yeah, fourth check box - projection onto the person you are asking the question to (Corey). The phrase “as you seem to enjoy so much” is a projection of trollish behavior onto Corey, when anyone with eyes can see its actually you using a question only as a setup to appear a victim of Corey misjudging you, then sticking him with a projection of your own bad quality.
Yes, you’re making sense (I think ). I’m hearing this as primarily an “assessment of” (Amber, Orange, Green, Teal demographics) and a bit of “idea that might help impact” (National Guard) our social development. I get that your solution isn’t an eradication of, but an “inclusion of” the lower altitudes. This is the humane thing to do and fitting with Integral Theory’s Transcend and Include.
We seem to get tripped up when we look further at the “make it happen” or “build the conveyor belt”. The contention seems to get stirred up when we look at, as an example, the implementation in our society - political domain (elections, debates, etc), leading to policy development, leading to administration and enforcement.
Is there a Council of Elders that charts out Integralism and how best to implement in the world? Or perhaps it’s a collective of like minded individuals in dialog on what Integralism should look like?
Of course not everyone has equal weight - Ken’s got serious butt weight, you’ve got pretty good butt weight, etc.
If we have altitudinal psychoses at all levels - I’ll contrive some examples:
Gets even more complex when we have blending of altitudinal psychoses. Say Orange and Amber psychoses combining for a Breaking Bad scenario. Then Red sees the opportunity to attack and take over the Meth distribution so hacks to pieces the psychotic Amber and Orange Meth organization - and perhaps a few healthy Amber, Orange, Green, Teal folks along the way. So it’s not trivial to label, tag,
This is long winded, but trying to point on that “it’s complex”. And how to identify and correct these psychoses.
I still am not sure that I understand how Integralism adapts. How does Integral Theory adapt, or perhaps it doesn’t need to?
Which aspect of integral are you referring to? Ken Wilber’s framework itself, or applications of the framework in the world?
When it comes to the theory itself, Ken has made several critical updates to his theory over the years, all resulting from constructive feedback and criticism he received over the years. This is what brought his work from the “Wilber 1” phase all the way to today’s “Wilber 5” phase, each phase being more comprehensive than the last. So in this case, Ken himself is the final arbiter for his own theory, but the revisions themselves have come from a deepening of insight that have either come through his own thinking, or from his own intersubjective network of trusted peers.
And of course, this theory has been expanded and refined by other experts through projects like the Journal of Integral Theory and Practice. There are others in the space who have tried to branch the theory and make it their own, but by and large I have been underwhelmed by those efforts.
As for applications of the theory, I’d say that is more like poetry in motion. All of us are doing our best to enact the world through this framework, and then sharing our insights and observations within a community of the adequate. We then do our best to separate the adequate feedback from the inadequate (some are more qualified than others to criticize integral thought, which is true for every known field of human inquiry), and then re-integrate that feedback into our ongoing sense-making. Sometimes this causes us to strengthen our positions, other times it prompts us to rethink our positions.
The reason being, even if we agree 100% about the details of the framework itself, it remains true that two people with similar familiarity with the model, but coming from two different kosmic addresses, will still see somewhat different things when using the model to enact reality. That’s where good-faith enfoldment comes in, where both parties can find a way to fold their respective truth claims together and find a deeper, wider mutual understanding (and the shared reality this mutual understanding generates).
Technically, Orange is where the worst of the systemically racist social structures – slavery, for example – hits the rocks. There are Orange surface structures that continue to operate according to the inertias of history (such as “colonialism”, which is a particular expression of amber values [or perhaps “umber” values] within an emerging orange technoeconomic system), but the deep structures of Orange are themselves worldcentric. And again, it was the combination of newly-emerging Orange worldcentric values in the UL and LL, plus the newly-emerging technologies of the Industrial Age in the LR, that allowed us to finally abolish slavery in these modernizing nations for the first time in history.
Green then continues to deepen this worldcentric care, especially for historically marginalized groups, and brings with it a newfound appreciation of the various cultural constructs and language patterns that sustain racist thoughts, interpretations, behaviors, and outcomes. Which is why Orange attempts at multiculturalism are often handicapped by an assimilative “colorblind” mentality, which tries to ignore our differences for the sake of appreciating our sameness.
Green then criticizes these approaches, because they notice that a) the “colorblind” culture that people are being made to assimilate into is more often than not a monocultural expression of the majority culture that is still anchored by yesterday’s inertias, and b) a genuine multi-cultural approach requires, you know, multiple cultures and subcultures that can live in harmony together. And I think they are handicapped by the fact that many of these cultures and subcultures are themselves ethnocentric, and Green doesn’t know how to include ethnocentric cultures in the name of multiculturalism, without themselves slipping into ethnocentric thought. I think we can see this slide back to ethnocentrism-in-the-name-of-worldcentrism in Ibram X Kendi’s controversial and contradictory statement:
“Racial discrimination is not inherently racist.” “The defining question is whether the discrimination is creating equity or inequity. If discrimination is creating equity, then it’s anti-racist. If discrimination is creating inequity then it is racist. The only remedy to racist discrimination is anti-racist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
I think this statement (which I largely disagree with, with caveats) is itself the product of green thinking (a green perception of the social dynamics at play, largely in Zones 4 and 7) but interpreted through and enforced by amber values of ethnocentricity.
The reason I am spending so much time on this point, is because CRT — which, again, I think has some mature green insights that we should probably find a way to integrate — has what I perceive as an extremely dangerous idea sitting in its very center: that we need to reject the very products of Orange that get us out of racism and bigotry in the first place. They believe (incorrectly) that we need to reject ideas such as “neutrality” and “objectivity”, which are the deep structures of orange, because they (correctly) believe we need to find a way to eradicate the inertias of colonialism that are often associated with Orange (which, as I said above, are actually the surface structures of Orange as it presented itself historically, enmeshed with the prevailing Amber values of the time).
In other words, they are confusing the surface structures of Orange with the deep structures of Orange, and if they successfully deconstruct those deep structures as they want to, then a) they have completely annihilated the very conveyor belt that allowed them to grow into Green perspectives in the first place, b) they have dismantled the very deep structures that get us out of racism and bigotry, and c) they literally leave people nowhere else to go but Amber. It is a well-intentioned disaster, and can only end up creating more suffering in a misguided attempt to reduce suffering.
Thanks Corey for the very thoughtful response. I’m a bit short on time right now and will re-read again later this week. And it’s both theory and application/impact.
So how do we “clean up” this Green veneered Amber? From my viewpoint, I don’t think Amber masquerading as Green can lead to Teal until it’s cleaned up. Wouldn’t we better off supporting healthy Orange and Green, instead of unhealthy Green and/or Amber?
Short answer, we solve the problems of critical race theory by pushing for a genuine “integral critical theory” that can up-level the discourse with a more evolutionary frame, which is essentially what I’ve been trying to do with my whole “8 zones of racism” stuff, and which basically tries to make the case that we’ve already had the sort of social transformations that get us beyond ethnocentrism, but simply have to complete the upgrade by taking seriously the various kinds of resistance and inertia that we still see in each of these eight zones.
Ok. Makes sense in theory, but I don’t see how the Integralists plan to “implement”. Based on my assessment and experience CRT promoters are much more Win/Lose than the “color blind” proponents.
Looking at your Zone 2 definition “ethnocentric structures and shadows that generate racist views and values”. I find two primary definitions of “ethnocentrism”. First roughly equates “ethnocentrism” with “racism”. Second uses a broader definition of “racism or culture”, which can very easily be used to conflate “racism” and “culturalism”, and then possibly “culturalism” and “nationalism” making it quite easy for confusion.
How are you using ethnocentrism/ethnocentric, what percentage of the US population do you think operate out of your definition, and what indicators do you look for?
Likewise, what indicators would show transcending ethnocentrism (as you are using it) that would enable this up-leveling?
Are there other ways to get to Integral Critical Theory than through Critical Race Theory?
Perhaps a CRT “reset” then develop through a healthy arch?
P.S. Here is an interesting look at internal Disney “Integral Gender Theory” implementation by their DEI team contrasted to the Florida Bill to stop government employees from teach Integral Gender Theory to grade school children. Sorry it’s another Fox clip, but don’t see that NYT, CNN, WaPo, et all are practicing “investigative journalism” into this.
P.S. I’ve got more thoughts on Zones 3/4 and 7/8 than I have time to write so please bear with me.
Ethnocentrism refers to a stage of development (the Amber stage) that Ken estimates includes somewhere between 50-60% of the population, in terms of people’s center of gravity. It is a value set that creates in-groups and out-groups based on shared characteristics, and where one is identified exclusively with “us”, whether our family, our group, our ethnicity, our gender, our sexual orientation, our traditions, our nation, etc. It is a stage of development that, for the most part, can only see the positive associations of its own group, which it regards as intrinsically superior, and only the negative associations of whatever group they are regarding as “other”. It is the stage where racism, sexism, homophobia, and bigotry in general are the most prominent, because the lines we draw between “us” and “them” are the most opaque.
“I don’t see how the Integralists plan to “implement”.”
I mean, we’re not philosopher kings, all we can do is try to uplevel the discourse the best we can within our own sphere of influence and create a space for new ideas to emerge and find traction. It’s a very similar process as every other major social transformation in history, where the newly emerging stage remains a cognitive minority until a tipping point of influence is reached. As Ken often says, we estimate that around 10% of the population was moving into Orange when the Renaissance kicked off, and around the same percentage when the American founding documents were written. And around 10% of the population was moving into Green when the civil rights movements of the 1960s occurred. Ken often points to this “10% tipping point” when contemplating the future of integral. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if it required more than 10% these days, considering how fragmented our informational terrains have become (which, as I often repeat, is itself one of the central life conditions that are calling for integral solutions at this time in history).
Are there other ways to get to Integral Critical Theory than through Critical Race Theory?
I’m not sure what exactly this means. I think “let’s integrate the partial truths within CRT” is different than “going through CRT”. In other words, ICT may agree with some CRT thinkers around what sorts of challenges we continue to face, but would likely interpret those challenges somewhat differently and suggest a very different set of interventions, based on the fact that ICT is using a developmental frame that is completely lacking in CRT, as well as a highly granular AND holistic understanding of the multiple dimensions of human experience and activity (e.g. the 8 zones).
“Based on my assessment and experience CRT promoters are much more Win/Lose than the “color blind” proponents.”
Yes, that would be the amber underbelly I was pointing to. But also, I would invite you to contemplate whether you are receiving a “clean” view of CRT, or if your view is being mediated through a particular informational terrain with baked-in conclusions about the value of CRT, because I think there are some important insights for us to pay attention to as well.
Perhaps a CRT “reset” then develop through a healthy arch?
How exactly would this be accomplished, other than through censorship and attempted cancellation of a particular set of ideas? This only entrenches people further, as we have been seeing for the last several years. I am much more interested in creating a more robust framework that is capable of acknowledging and integrating multiple perspectives, by recognizing the partial truths that these various schools of thought are providing, alongside the limitations and blind spots within each of those schools. We need to up-level the conflict from win/lose debate to win/win/win discourse, and provide a frame that people with conflicting views can at least partially agree with, which is something I hope to accomplish with this particular set of ideas. That’s what I am feeling called to, anyway.
This gives me a more optimistic appraisal of our global situation than I previously had. Moving 10% of the population into Teal is very doable in the next 20 years. No, I don’t think 10% already is Teal. My judgment is there is a lot of Green that think they are Teal because they have “woke up”, but they still have a lot of shadow and unwillingness to embrace Strong Power and Strong Speech when needed,
I’d like to present the challenge that part of Grow Up is to move from analysis to action and even confrontation when needed. Clean Up during this process involves making sure that Action and Confrontation is for the best benefit of all, and not oneself or one’s own group at the expense of others.
To this end, my action is working in the Green community to remind them that you are obligated to step into your Power and Voice to take Action and turn Theory into Practice and then to Reality.
My actions in the Non-Green spheres of the society around me tends to be more an opportunity for me to practice. For example, standing strong and firm in the face of physical violence, but not being angry at the perpetrator while doing so. To a lesser extent standing strong against harmful ideas while at the same time feeling compassion for the person trying to spread those ideas. Now that the whole Ukraine thing has upped the stakes - being willing to kill other humans if necessary and all else has failed while at the same time seeing them as human.
The next 20 years is going to require a lot from that Teal 10%.
Where my optimism comes from is that 10% is doable, and I can start working on those in my community, who I judge have “woken up”, and to a large part are “cleaning up” but may need to recognize the full extent “Growing up” and the necessity for them to be in their Fullness of Power and Voice. Or, at the other end of my Community, working on those who are to some degrees “Grown Up”, and introduce them to Waking up and Cleaning Up.
To address what @FermentedAgave has been asking every so often, and before Ukraine I didn’t want to answer - but now the genie is out of the bottle and impossible to ignore. Yes, Teal may very well have to kill some % of people who absolutely refuse to abandon Red methods as their primary means of getting what they want. Refusal to do so is Green in my judgement, and needs to be re-evaluated at Teal. We had to decide this in Ukraine in a period of hours, and we may very well have to decide this in the United States.
Thanks Corey. I think what I’m getting is the Integral Theory fully intends to maintain a “philosophical” approach without getting into implementation. Of course everyone will take their Integralism into their workplaces, schools, churches, families, communities, politics.
It’s tough when discussing nuanced and complex terrains when there are multiple definitions - common, common expanded, technical IT.
This is a pretty broad definition for Ethnocentric. Based on Ken’s definition it’s fairly pejorative.
The amber altitude began about 5,000 years ago, and indicates a worldview that is traditionalist and mythic in nature—and mythic worldviews are almost always held as absolute (this stage of development is often called absolutistic). Instead of “might makes right,” amber ethics are more oriented to the group, but one that extends only to “my” group. Grade school and high school kids usually exhibit amber motivations to “fit in.” Amber ethics help to control the impulsiveness and narcissism of red. Culturally, amber worldviews can be seen in fundamentalism (my God is right no matter what); extreme patriotism (my country is right no matter what); and ethnocentrism (my people are right no matter what).
I get what you mean about Critical Integral Theory being wholly distinct from Critical Race/Gender/Sex/xyz Theories and will expand to include Intersectionality.
I appreciate your time on this and know that it’s often laborious to hash out what we each mean. Thanks!
